Nietsche's concept of Aristocracy
Nietzsche’s Concept of Aristocracy
Nietzsche
has described the aim of his philosophic endeavor quite clearly, and that aim
is to build an aristocracy for Europe that can create a thousand years long
empire. He writes:
“But here it
is expedient to break off my festal discourse…for I have already reached my
serious topic, the “European problem,” as I understand it, the rearing of a new
ruling caste to Europe.”
For
Nietzsche, the real threat to Europe comes from Russia, whose disintegration he
views in promoting the democratic ideal there. Russia for Nietzsche is a
thousand years old empire that has acquired the qualities of a crocodile, that
waits for its prey, hiding its predator energies behind its apparent laziness,
but once it finds its prey within its reach, it devours it. …But it is strongest and most surprising of
all in that immense middle empire where Europe as it were flows back to
Asia—namely, in Russia. There the power to will has been long stored up and
accumulated, there the will—uncertain whether to be negative
That merely
is the political background of his own age, in which Nietzsche wanted to create
a European aristocracy, otherwise the reason behind his will to create a new
aristocracy in Europe, is to assure a more stable European society. He writes:
“I mean such
an increase in the threatening attitude of Russia, that Europe would have to
make up its mind to become equally threatening—namely, to acquire one will, by
means of a new caste to rule over the continent, a persistent, dreadful will of
its own, that can set it aims thousands of years ahead; so that the long
spun-out comedy of its petty stateism, and its dynastic as well as its
democratic many-willedness, might finally brought to a close. The time for
petty politics is past; the next century bring the struggle for the dominion of
the world.”
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